The Production and Delivery of Probiotics: A Review of a Practical Approach

To successfully deliver probiotic benefits to the consumer, several criteria must be met. Here, we discuss the often-forgotten challenges in manufacturing the strains and incorporating them in consumer products that provide the required dose at the end of shelf life. For manufacturing, an intricate production process is required that ensures both high yield and stability and must also be able to meet requirements such as the absence of specific allergens, which precludes some obvious culture media ingredients. Reproducibility is important to ensure constant high performance and quality. To ensure this, quality control throughout the whole production process, from raw materials to the final product, is essential, as is the documentation of this quality control. Consumer product formulation requires extensive skill and experience. Traditionally, probiotic lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria have been incorporated in fermented dairy products, with limited shelf life and refrigerated storage. Currently, probiotics may be incorporated in dietary supplements and other "dry" food matrices which are expected to have up to 24 months of stability at ambient temperature and humidity. With the right choice of production process, product formulation, and strains, high-quality probiotics can be successfully included in a wide variety of delivery formats to suit consumer requirements.